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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719448">(tell everyone) you were a good wife</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups'>queerofcups</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Check Please! (Webcomic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Infidelity, Light BDSM, M/M, Questionable Gender Politics, Relationship Negotiation, Slurs, Under-negotiated Kink</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:48:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,804</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719448</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The biggest problem with pretending that he doesn’t know that Kent Parson is fucking his husband is that Jack can’t tell Kent how grateful he is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann, Jack Zimmerman/Original Female Character, Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Check Please Heartbreak Fest 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. standing in the street, trying not to crack up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/gifts">tomato_greens</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It is both stressful and incredibly helpful to have a gift recipient with a whole ass podcast where they talk about what kind of fic they want, is all I'm saying. </p><p>Tomato, this fic genuinely wouldn't exist if it weren't for you, since coming upon your writing and thinking about Check Please was part of the reason I was able to come back to the fandom. I hope you like it!</p><p>ALL the thankyous to <a>jestbee</a> for beta'ing and cheerleading and generally being a great friend. </p><p>Fic title is from The Mountain Goat's No Children.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title is from The National's Pink Rabbits</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
He and Bitty get married in the spring, after two years of meticulous planning. There is pale wisteria that Bitty handpicked, and the pews are beech, not cedar. Bitty’s jacket isn’t white, it's <em>wevet</em>, because plain white would look gauche against the tan (which is subtle, so tasteful you can’t tell he hasn’t spent the last week on some beach so nice it doesn’t even have a name). </p><p>But his teeth are white and his eyes are so big and Jack catalogues every moment so he can remember. There are 215 steps from the stairs of the church to the--the--. Jack can’t think of the name of the thing where the pastor sits. Of course, Jack was 9 when he realized that “lapsed” wasn’t a special type of Catholic you can be, no matter how many times his <em>maman </em>called herself that. </p><p>There’s sweat prickling just along Bitty’s hairline because even he can’t engineer a solution to tornado season in Georgia. Jack watches a drop slip, unnoticed down the side of Bitty’s face. There is talking, and Jack parrots it the best he can.</p><p>When Bitty finally leans up on his toes to kiss Jack,  Jack tries to imagine the face his future therapist will make when he tells her that the only things he remembers from his wedding day are 1) the first 12 of 215 steps, 2) that in Baptist Church, a preacher sits at a pulpit and 3) the dark sliver of the photographer moving in close just before Jack closes his eyes. </p><p>The photos come out great. </p><p>→→→→→→→→→→→→→→</p><p>If you were to ask Jack point-blank why Kent Parson is staying in his guest bedroom, he’d tell you it’s because Kent’s house is being totally remodeled and they happened to live in the neighborhood. If you were to follow that question up by pointing out that there are many, luxurious hotels in the area, and that Kent is, in fact, richer than Jack (so he could definitely afford to stay at any of them), Jack would probably just walk away. </p><p>Jack’s therapist says he’s afraid of conflict because he’s afraid of what it will teach him about himself. His domme makes him read another book ruminating on the nature of love. <br/>

Kent is up to six hours a day in a normally lit room bare faced. When he’d first come to stay with them, the migraines started after an hour and a half and he wore sunglasses all the time. Inside or outside. Bitty muttered to himself about it being disrespectful to wear them at the dinner table, but he’d done it while he was ordering delivery and Kent hadn’t been in earshot.</p><p>Jack lets himself into the house, and stops to tug his shoes off and pull his coat off. He opens the hall closet and puts the bag from the tailor away. He runs a hand through his hair and walks into the kitchen. The pre-heating notification is going off, so Jack turns the alarm off. The beeping makes his fillings hurt, and it's just a notification, telling Bitty that the preheating is done. It would have gone off eventually. Jack turns toward the hallway and stops and listens.</p><p>Down the hall, Bitty is moaning, long and loud enough that he can’t hear the oven beeping. There’s someone else talking.</p><p>If Jack had to guess, they’re in the fifth guestroom. The acoustics of the hallway aren’t great and the open floorplan of the kitchen/living room area (Bitty’s insistence) doesn’t lend itself to guessing locations. But that’s the bedroom Jack never goes in. </p><p>He’d told Bitty that they never have guests over often enough to justify it. Bitty told him that he didn’t have to go in there, then. Jack had been right, and it had become BItty’s office, tastefully crowded with a bed and a large desk and whatever filming equipment that couldn’t be tucked away in the kitchen. </p><p>He’s got a new oven on its way, the kind that sends you a text when it's ready, an early fourth-anniversary gift. Jack doesn’t really get why you’d want your oven texting you, but Bitty’s eyes light up when he talks about it and Jack can read a room reasonably well.</p><p>When they moved in Bitty had insisted on carpet in the hallway and the bedrooms. One of the interior designers said something offhanded about them wanting to pull it up when they had kids, gave a half-thought joke about it getting dirty with little footprints. It was early enough that Bitty’s jaw didn’t flex the way it does when his smile is actually just a pretty clench of his back teeth.</p><p>Jack had been right about that argument, too. You can’t fuck your husband’s ex or best friend or rival or whatever Kenny decides he wants to be that day when you have kids underfoot. Or maybe you can. Jack doesn’t know. He leaves the house to fuck other people. An other person.</p><p>There is carpet, and that is why Jack is able to move down the hallway, unheard. And that is why he gets to watch Kent’s ass flex and relax as he fucks Bitty. </p><p>Bitty, whose legs are spread to brace himself on his tiptoes. Bitty, who’s got one arm stretched across his desk, holding on for dear life and the other awkwardly angled so he can get a hand between his legs. </p><p>Kent’s got a birthmark, high on his hip. His whole spread in his first appearance in The Body Issue was art directed around that birthmark. It looked a little bit like a crown, which Kent never let anyone forget. </p><p>If you’d asked Jack three minutes ago, he would have told you that he definitely didn’t remember the last time he’d seen it, three days before the draft, blue in the weird light of some hotel pool and tasting like chlorine when Jack chanced a kiss while Kent looked around for someone to materialize at 3am.</p><p>The room is dim, lit mostly by the light from the hallway. It’s half past noon, Jack’s glad they’d taken the time to lower the curtains.</p><p>Jack goes back to the kitchen. </p><p>→→→→→→→→→→→→→→</p><p><br/>
“Oh, hey honey,” Bitty says when he finds his way to the kitchen. “How long you been home?” </p><p>Jack can see Bitty’s real reaction for a sliver of a second--the way his eyes go a little wild and swivel around the room before landing on the oven.</p><p>It’s been twenty minutes. Jack watched the time on his phone. Before that, he’d been on Twitter. Kent had last tweeted at 9:30am. Bitty’s last tweet, a reminder that he’d posted a new video on Tuesday, was at 10:15. Then again, Jack’s spent the last two years watching Bitty settle down to schedule tweets for the week, so that probably doesn’t mean anything.</p><p>Jack’s last tweet, for whatever it's worth, was a retweet of Bitty from weeks ago when he first found out he was going to be honored at the Trevor Project. Jack had been out picking up their suits off at the tailor for last-minute alterations after his appointment. Their flight leaves in a week and a half.</p><p>Jack’s been envisioning the step-and-repeat with Ami for months, counting breaths and adjusting if he isn’t properly filling up his lungs. </p><p><br/>
“Hey,” Jack says, “Just a few minutes. Traffic.”</p><p>Bitty makes a sympathetic noise and turns to rifle through the baking cabinet, grabbing one of the smaller bags of flour and a well loved bottle of agave nectar.</p><p> “Where’s Kent?” He asks it to be mean. He watches the bones of Bitty’s shoulders gather together as he flinches. </p><p>They had a cat once, right before Jack’s last injury. Jack liked her, liked the way she chirped at him when she wanted to be picked up and how small she was in his hands. And there was a little thrill of panic every time he pet between her ears and felt the thinness of her skull, how easy it would be to squeeze just a little too hard. </p><p>Bitty’s fineboned, too. He’s maintained some decorative muscle, the kind that comes from supersets on the machines that he never mentions when he goes for a jog with the girls. But he’s always going to be small and the older Jack gets the younger Bitty seems. </p><p>The botox probably helps, too. Just a touch, around the eyes and mouth. He’s almost 27, which is almost 30, which is almost dead, so he’s got to keep on top of these things. At least that’s what Bitty says, right before he brushes the corner of Jack’s mouth softly, right where the smile lines don’t smooth away quite as quickly anymore. </p><p>“Oh,” Bitty says, breathing into the word. “I’m not sure? I just got home, too, had to run out to grab a few things for the test round. We’re giving the citrus layer cake another try.”</p><p>“That’s nice,” Jack says. The citrus layer cake is nice, it might be Jack’s favorite yet. </p><p>“How was the good doc?” Bitty asks because the last five years have taught him the texture and taste of all of Jack’s little lies. </p><p>“She’s good,” Jack says, trying to call up what he and his therapist last talked about. “She says thank you for the key lime pie recipe.” </p><p>“Oh good,” Bitty says. “That lady’s got a thing for sour, huh? You think she’d want a piece of citrus cake?”</p><p>Under Bitty’s voice, Jack can just barely hear the shower turning on from somewhere deep in the house. </p><p><br/>
There are, approximately, four women that matter to Jack. His and Bitty’s mothers, because of blood and obligation respectively, make the cut. Lardo was the fifth, but that’s not what Lardo is anymore.</p><p>George should make the cut, after all those years, but all he sees when he runs into her is a replay of himself going down on the ice and not coming back up one last time.</p><p>There is Ami, his therapist. Jack probably doesn’t love his own mother like he loves Ami but she’d scold him if he ever told her that. And he feels bad that it's true. But Alicia didn’t do much more than birth him. Hockey raised him. Ami’s the one who rebuilt him. </p><p>During their first session, Jack had told her that without hockey, Bitty was the only thing he was interested in living for. She’d asked him if anyone ever told him that he took himself too seriously. Jack had bared his teeth at her because he couldn’t remember exactly how to smile back then and says Kent’s name. </p><p>She talks over him sometimes and the only bad thing she’s ever said about Bitty directly is that his key lime came out a little too sweet. </p><p>He sees her twice a week, every other week.</p><p>And then there is his Maîtresse. </p><p>She and Jack have seen each other outside exactly once. Jack saw Her second, but She’d stayed across the street and watched him come over. A smile played on Her face as he stumbled through a lie to Bitty about how, exactly, they knew each other. She hadn’t let Her girlfriend’s hand go when She pulled Jack into a hug and whispered that he was good for not trying to ignore Her. Her nails were sharp against the back of his neck and Her long, long braids slid against his jacket when she pulled away. </p><p>Jack knows that he paid for both because She tells him so before She turns him into a table and doesn’t speak to him for the first hour, just to remind him what it feels like to be ignored. </p><p>He sees Her twice on the weeks that he isn’t with Ami. She charges him extra if he doesn’t show appropriate reverence, which is usually. She makes him get on his knees and crawl around her floor and doesn’t explain why just to set Jack’s teeth on edge. He knows Her name, but he hasn’t earned the right to use it yet. </p><p>Jack thinks of Bitty’s Future First Wives club, the women he goes running with, the girls who always snag top comment on his baking videos, and thinks that maybe Bitty would understand needing a small cabal of women just to wake up in the morning. </p><p>He doesn’t know if he’ll tell Ami or his Maîtresse about this first.</p><p>“Zimms,” Kent says, coming into the kitchen. He leans across the marble countertop, the zipper of his jacket clinking noisily against the surface. His hair is still honeydark with wetness. Jack wonders if his cock still smelled like Bitty and curls his fingers against the countertop so he doesn’t have to track all the ways his body reacted to that thought. </p><p>“D’you want to get a quick work out in before Bitty starts dinner?” Kent asks.</p><p>“How’s your head?” Jack asks automatically. </p><p>“Haven’t had any complaints,” Kent says, spreading his million-dollar smile. Jack remembers Kent's old teeth--uneven and spread a little too far apart. Jack wonders just how many people there are in the world who remember the days when Kent Parson had an overbite. </p><p>The part of Jack’s brain that sounds like an always passing train suggests that he should be feeling something--anything--other than a mild affection for a dental malady that doesn’t even exist anymore. There are harder things to ignore.</p><p>Jack sends off a quick text and stands up, nodding affirmation to Kent.</p><p>→→→→→→→→→→→→→→</p><p><br/>
Bitty snores. He does it softly, the kind of thing that ends up being endearing rather than annoying. Jack teases him about it, on the mornings of good days. He’ll wrinkle his nose and accuse Jack of lying, but his cheeks go petal pink anyway. It reminds Jack of Samwell, and the way Bitty would go soft and small for him. </p><p>Bitty’s always making himself softer and smaller for Jack, but it doesn’t really work because he never means it. </p><p>But on the mornings of the good days-- when Jack’s teasing him and he’s calling Jack Mr. Zimmerman like the beginning of their relationship when there were only good days--Bitty will let Jack wrap him up in a hug, small and cute and crushable and Jack will have the horrible, inescapable thought: <em>God, I wish that were me</em>.</p><p>When Bitty falls asleep on the couch, settled between the two of them, that night and Jack catches Kent looking at Bitty, not particularly secretive about it, he wishes the thought came so easily. </p><p>That might be why he and Bitty work so well together. Bitty’s thoughts probably line up like dominoes and come in one at a time, always perfectly in order. </p><p>There is a tangled mess of impulses in Jack’s head. He and Kent have always been similar like that.</p><p>“Bud,” Jack says softly, squeezing Bitty’s shoulder.</p><p>“Hmm,” Bitty sighs, shoving his face into Jack’s shoulder. “No.”</p><p>Jack snorts and squeezes again, shaking Bitty a little. Kent watches the both of them and Jack ignores him. He’s been there long enough that Jack doesn’t even hate him watching these little intimacies anymore. </p><p>“Bits, c’mon,” he says again, “Bed.”</p><p>Bitty groans again but sits up this time and follows easily enough when Jack tugs him up and starts marching him toward the master bedroom. </p><p>“Night, Kenny,” Jack says. Kent doesn’t answer but the TV volume lowers.</p><p>They undress and wash and re-dress together, one after the other, and Jack leans against the counter while Bitty finishes his nightly skin routine. They both have one, but Jack’s skin is both oily and so sensitive and he’d spent years and years sweating and strapping things to it, so it breaks out if he overhandles it Plus, he likes watching Bitty spread and pat and knead his face into submission the same way he manages dough. </p><p>Jack used to lose whole half hours, sitting beside Bitty and watching him do anything in particular, as long as it involved his hands. </p><p>He thinks about Bitty’s hands, one splayed across his desk, the other disappeared down into the dark between his legs.</p><p>Probably, Bitty showered while he and Kent were in the gym. Probably, his hands don’t smell like anything but seaweed and crushed pearls. Probably, he wouldn’t make Jack kneel next to him on the bathroom tile and rub his hands over Jack’s face and make him guess if he’s smelling Kent or Bitty himself. </p><p>With Ami, Jack practices naming what he wants. It’s embarrassing, how hard it is, because he’s made a name for himself going for what he wants. He’s Jack Zimmerman, Bad Bob’s son, hockey superstar who clawed himself from exile onto a Stanley Cup-winning team.</p><p>“Bits,” Jack says, curling his fingers against the sink. “Do you wanna--?”</p><p>Bitty looks over at him, eyes flickering from Jack’s face down his body. Jack lets domesticity carry away the rest of the question. It should be enough. Bitty should know what he wants.</p><p>“Sure, honey,” Bitty says, “Just let me finish up here. My mouth ok? I’m pretty tired.”</p><p>“Yeah, sure,” Jack lies. “Perfect.”</p><p>→→→→→→→→→→→→→→</p><p>Bitty, Jack says, do you want to?</p><p>Bitty lies back on his back.</p><p>Do you want to? </p><p>Bitty spreads his legs, even though he’d only offered his mouth.</p><p>Do you wanna?</p><p>When Jack climbs on top of him, Bitty’s eyes track a little left of Jack’s head. It’s almost imperceptible, and Jack can guess where it is Bitty goes, because he goes to that place too, after a long session with his Maîtresse</p><p>Jack wonders what it feels like to be fucked twice in a day, and comes too soon from the thought. His phone chirps with a text message. </p><p>→→→→→→→→→→→→→→</p><p><br/>
“Bitty is cheating on me,” Jack says in a punched out breath. Her cock is so big inside of him. She does this thing where She rolls Her hips so that the leather of Her harness drags against Jack’s skin. It drives him wild that he can’t quite figure it out. It drives him out of his mind. It’s the kind of thing he thinks about when he’s sitting at the bar in the kitchen and Bitty and Kent have both disappeared and if he gets very quiet and listens very closely, he thinks he can hear the sound of skin slapping against skin. </p><p>To be fair, it was the kind of thing he thought about before all that business, when he was holding Bitty down but knew he wasn’t doing it right because Bitty kept sighing out carefully soft encouragement. </p><p>“And what would you call what you’re doing right now?” She asks. </p><p>Jack doesn’t answer fast enough, so She reaches forward to grab the too long fringe that Bitty instructs him to sweep up into a style trendier than Jack is, exactly, comfortable with. There is a prickle and bloom of pain and it’s a little funny, if he thinks about it, how long he got paid to get hurt before he figured out he could pay someone to hurt him. </p><p>“Getting fucked,” Jack says through clenched teeth. It’s the right answer, because he hates it. He hates how much he wants it. He hates how crude it sounds, he hates the way he hasn’t wanted anything like he wants Her cock since he left the ice.</p><p>Jack doesn’t particularly think of himself as an addict. Everyone in his life who’s ever heard him use the word on himself has looked up at him with big, moony eyes and a promise that they don’t think of him that way, so he just doesn’t.</p><p>But She makes him read things-- it's Her way of reminding him that he’s under Her orders--and She’s got a thing for memoirs. Jack’s read enough of memoirs of people who’ve dragged themselves back from the cold certainty of one addiction or another to know that how he feels about Her--how he felt about hockey, or Kent, or Bitty--isn’t necessarily <em>healthy</em>.</p><p>But Jack doesn’t owe his health to anyone anymore (at least that’s what Ami tells him). And money makes it easier. He’s clear on his place in Her life--he pays her obscene amounts to tell him the same things his therapist tells him, but at least when She does it, it doesn’t feel <em>good</em> for him. </p><p>Well. </p><p>It feels good. But a session with her hasn’t ever felt like the hours he wasted in PT before the Falcs finally decided he wasn’t coming back. He can’t say the same for Ami. </p><p><br/>
Besides, technically, Bitty knows about Her. If Bitty isn’t telling him to stop, how bad could it be? <br/>
 <br/>
Bitty’s the one who manages their money (meaning, he’s the one who reads the emails from their accountant). He’d asked, carefully and exactly once, why Jack was sending regular direct payments to a bank account at bank they didn’t use. </p><p>Jack had stumbled through an explanation, the most he was willing to give up and Bitty had made a quiet noise. It wasn’t hurt exactly. If Jack thought about it (and he did. Once, on one of his last roadies, he’d stood in the shower and jerked off for a little too long and he couldn’t come until he thought about the noise Bitty made) the sound was relief, an anticipated thing finally falling into place. </p><p>Bitty doesn’t get along with all of the WAGs, but they’ve been to enough holiday bashes for Jack to see the way he melts into what Bitty fondly calls the Future First Wives Club--all the women who’d managed to turn a strained young love affair into a ring and a house or two and hadn’t yet been traded in for younger models. </p><p>Jack doesn’t have the energy to tell Bitty that the payments are because Jack doesn’t know how to find someone to hold him down and fuck him for free. There aren’t many ways that Jack doesn’t fail to live up to Bitty’s expectations of what he thought life would be. He’s loathe to disappoint BItty in this way too. </p><p>“Hey,” She says, smacking his flank, open and familiar palmed. “When you’re here, you’re here. You asked for an extra session, don’t waste my time.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jack pants. When he’s here, he’s here. And Bitty is home. And so is Kent. </p><p>When they’re finished, She sits on a velvet couch wrapped in a silk robe he’d helped Her pick out. She’s got a joint between her fingers and Her nails are jeweled and painted deep grey. </p><p>Jack rests his head in her lap. She’s scrolling through Instagram. He recognizes the pattern of the soft clicks against Her phone screen. He pays for this absent affection, too.</p><p>“Maîtresse,” Jack says. </p><p>She doesn’t respond, and he waits to be allowed to speak. </p><p>“Yeah, Jack?” She finally asks, after a long enough pause that Jack thinks She might have forgotten about him. There’s a shiver of pleasure in that thought. </p><p>“How does your girlfriend forgive you, for sleeping with other people?” It isn’t exactly what he meant to say, but it's what comes out. </p><p>She snorts, “The same way I forgive her for wasting her labor and that fat ass on an office job.”</p><p>There is a pregnant pause, and then, “Don’t ever ask about my personal life again. You’ll get the request for an additional hundred dollars for invading on my boundaries.” </p><p>“Yes, Maîtresse,” Jack says. “May I ask another question?”</p><p>“Sure,” She says, “It’s your wallet.”</p><p>“How did you tell your girlfriend you wanted to sleep with other people?” </p><p>“God,” She exhales a steady stream of smoke, “Straight people are boring.” </p><p>Jack looks up at Her, “Bitty is a man.”</p><p>She’s lovely, even upside down. Jack thinks he’d be afraid to speak to Her, under normal circumstances. </p><p>“You’ve told me about Bitty,” She says and picks Her phone back up. “That just doesn’t count for as much as you think it does.”</p><p>Jack doesn’t know what that means, so he finally sits up. </p><p>→→→→→→→→→→→→→→</p><p>In the four days since he first walked into his house to the sound of an oven beeping and Bitty getting fucked by Kent, he’s left the house five times. Every time he’s come home, neither of them are around for the first few minutes. Eventually, Bitty appears, and then Kent does. Usually, there is a shower running.</p><p>He and Bitty have fucked three times--three times more than they did all of last month. Every time he’s asked and Bitty’s said yes. Jack supposes he’s not supposed to notice that Bitty never comes, because neither of them mention it. </p><p>→→→→→→→→→→→→→→</p><p>Kent’s taken up Olympic lifting.</p><p>The thing that Jack remembers most from his first year in retirement is waking up every morning and having nowhere in particular to go. At first because he couldn’t, the shattered and reconstructed remnants of his knee and thigh pinning him to the bed. And months after that, because when he tried to create obligations for himself the anxiety of having to be somewhere that wasn’t where he wanted to be stole the breath out of his chest. </p><p>The first decades of his life were dedicated to hockey, and when he finally got it, he’d only managed six years in the league, all told. The first year of his retirement, Jack thinks a lot about how short six years is. The nurses started recognizing him, he thought about it so much. Those memories all taste faintly of charcoal. </p><p>He has to store his daily meds in one of those old people day of the week containers because the sound of too many pills in a bottle is triggering. He keeps the extras, the ones that turn the edges of the world blurry, in jacket pockets, and a soft pouch in the glove compartment of his car. Bitty doesn’t know about those, but they don’t matter, because he’s fine now. He hardly takes those at all, these days.</p><p>When he sits on a bench and watches Kent load up a barbell, he can see the faint shadow of whatever is biting at Kent’s heels. Jack does maintenance workouts, the kind of thing that keeps muscles from turning to bloat. Bitty does more, has a vested interest in maintaining a particular size of pants and shirt. Kent works out all the time, sometimes with them, sometimes on his own. </p><p><br/>
Kent hasn’t gotten bigger, necessarily, but he approaches the barbell with a slowness Jack’s never seen before. When the lift moves too smoothly, Kent goes to get another set of weights. He stands with his back to Jack and his thighs tremble through deadlifts, Kent forcing himself upright. </p><p>Jack’s watched him before, watching the tremor in his arms, the intentional shift of his glutes. Kent ignores him, but that’s a familiar enough thrill to be boring.</p><p>This morning, Jack had woken up to thin early morning light, an empty bed and a closed bathroom door. </p><p>He hadn’t had to hold particularly still to hear Kent quietly murmuring on the other side.</p><p>“I want you to fuck Bitty,” Jack says now, because it's the logical next step. </p><p>Kent drops the barbell, but Jack’s pretty sure he’s supposed to do that. </p><p>“Sorry?” Kent says.</p><p>Bitty makes fun of both their accents sometimes, the way Kent’s American as pie but he can’t help the way his Os curl over themselves when he’s been talking to Jack too long. It was a first crack in the iciness between all three of them, when Kent first came to them, Bitty laughing softly to himself about hearing Jack come out of Kent’s mouth. </p><p>Personally, Jack thinks when Bitty hears an apology he expects it to be Jack. But both Ami and his Maîtresse say pettiness is a bad look for him, so he doesn’t ever say that aloud. </p><p>“I want you to fuck Bitty,” Jack repeats. It turns him on just to say it. It's easier to name desire when it's not for him, and he’s nowhere in this equation quite yet. There is just Kent, just Bitty, just the thing they’ve been doing already. </p><p>Jack has no idea how long they’ve been doing this, but that’s the kind of detail that feels like reality shoving in. </p><p>Reality had stepped out long before he found himself sitting in his gym, cock chubbing up in his shorts with Kent Parson, fucking Kenny, barging into his life again. </p><p>“Jack,” Kent laughs, “What? Man, are you…? Jack, are you using again?”</p><p>“Are you?” Jack asks easily. The answer doesn’t matter--Kent brings up Jack’s addiction like an ace. An overdose that happened more than a decade ago isn’t nearly as interesting as Kent needs to find it. Anyway, Jack does what he needs to do to get through the day. That’s not Kent’s business, or Bitty’s.</p><p>“Jack,” Kent says. Jack wishes he’d stop saying his name so much. “You’ve been out of the house a lot. We’ve been worried about you.” </p><p>Jack laughs. He doesn’t, as a rule, laugh much. He stands up.</p><p>“Zimms,” Kent tries. “Come on. Let’s talk about this. I don’t know what Bittle’s said to you but you know how he is. We can fix whatever’s going on.”</p><p>Bitty doesn’t say anything but yes to Jack. He only says what Jack needs to hear. </p><p>Bitty’s out with Marlena. That’s good. He doesn’t have to hear the racket Kent’s making.</p><p>Jack leaves.</p><p>→→→→→→→→→→→→→→</p><p>Jack sits at the counter, watching Alicia chop mushrooms. They’re the white button kind. She pops the stems off with her thumb and sets them down in a bunch. Her knife slips through them, thumping dully against the chopping board. Her fingers are so thin. Whatever signs of age that haven’t reached her face show up in the way the skin on her hands has gone so soft and tissue thin. </p><p>She’s talking quietly to Marisol, the cook who’s actually managing the sauce they’re making. Alicia’s been taking cooking classes. She’s no good, according to her, but she needs something to fill up the time. She’s taking pottery classes too, on the weekend. <br/>
She’s also fucking the son of the cook, but Jack supposes that’s her right as a widower. He wishes he didn’t know that part, but he’d also shown up at her house with a duffle bag and no explanation, so maybe it's a fair trade. </p><p>She’s pretty busy for someone who doesn’t seem to leave him alone very long. </p><p>“You’ve got to call him back eventually,” she says, glancing up from her newest batch of mushrooms to Jack’s phone. He’s turned off the ringers but it still lights up with calls. He idly considers putting it back in airplane mode. It hadn't rung once from the airport to his parents house, that had been glorious.</p><p>“He deserves that much, Jack,” she says. </p><p>Jack looks up at her. </p><p>She was Dad’s second wife. Jack doesn’t know much about the first one, just that she was closer to Dad’s age, twelve years Alicia’s senior. Jack doesn’t know much about his parent’s relationship at all. </p><p>“I didn’t think he’d have it in him to kick you out,” Alicia says, “I didn’t.” </p><p>Jack picks up his phone and listens to the voicemail that just got left. </p><p>His Maîtresse says, Your husband keeps calling me. I told him I don’t know where you are. We’ll talk about how he got my number when you get back. If you need help, let me know, Jack. We aren’t friends, but I can connect you to people. You deserve to be safe. </p><p>Jack deletes the message then Venmos Her another hundred dollars. He can’t imagine what kind of punishment She’ll create for this imposition.</p><p>&lt;&lt;What do you mean you didn’t, mom?&gt;&gt; Jack asks. </p><p>&lt;&lt;You know who your father was, baby&gt;&gt;, Alicia says.  </p><p>She turns to dump the mushrooms into a sizzling skillet and looks back at him, “He raised you to be just like him. No shame in picking up the bad parts too, you know?” </p><p>Alicia crosses her arms, gold bracelets clinking together and they watch each other, silence settling between them. Bob died in Jack’s fifth year with the Falcs. He’d gotten his payoff, watching Jack hoist the cup and hadn’t had to watch the aftermath and went and died before the comedown. </p><p>Alicia is the one who’d shown up after his fourth time in the hospital and held his hand while he vomited up charcoal and bile. </p><p>“Was it Kent?” she finally asks. “I knew that was a bad idea when you told me he was moving in. I love that boy but he’s no good for you.” </p><p>“Yes, <em>maman</em>,” Jack sighs, “It was Kent.” </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. get what you got (comin to ya)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title from The Chick's Tights on My Boat</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eric is old enough to know that he’s not going to marry Ramsey Frumm. There are a couple reasons why. For one, he and Ramsey have talked about applying to a bunch of different colleges, but Ramsey hasn’t gone further north than Vanderbilt--which is a longshot, even with the essays Eric helped him write--and Bitty’s got his eyes set on Samwell. </p><p>There’s the fact that Ramsey’s on the football team, good enough that he’s gone to a few prospect camps and there’s an unsubstantiated rumor that his Mama and Daddy have been on the phone with Coach Saban a handful of times. Eric figures that one might be true because if someone wanted good rumors about Ramsey they’d say someone from Georgia Southern was coming calling, so no one would be wondering if Ramsey might be thinking about becoming a traitor to the whole town. </p><p>And, Ramsey isn’t, as far as he tells Eric, gay. Of course, Eric’s never told Ramsey he’s gay either. He just put his last hopes of the right girl coming along to rest last year, in the tenth grade, but he’s not ready to say it out loud just yet.</p><p>Eric supposes Ramsey could be bi or...or pan or any of those other ones Eric keeps coming across when he’s online. They get so specific and personally, Eric doesn’t see why they can’t be happy with the one or two words they’ve got. But he’s careful not to post that opinion on any of the forums he’s stumbled across unless someone else has said it first. </p><p>He’s pretty sure Ramsey is <em>something</em>. Just from the way he smiles at Eric, and how he never takes part when the football team is calling Eric names or asking what he’s looking at in the locker room. They used to be friends, growing up, and they talk about it sometimes when Ramsey comes by for tutoring that usually turns into Eric fixing them both something to eat and helping Ramsey through most of the work. </p><p>So yeah, Eric knows he and Ramsey aren’t getting married, even if Ramsey was gay and willing to move to one of the states where they could do that kind of thing. </p><p>But in moments like today, sitting on the inside bleachers in the echo-y gym with the rest of the 12th grade boys, waiting for Coach Frumm to talk to them about sex, Eric needs any kind of distraction. Imagining a tux the color of clotted cream against Ramsey’s dark skin is the thing that works. </p><p>“Most of you boys probably have questions about ahhh, dating and se...relationships. We want to make sure you’re treating those fine Lady Raiders right, ha ha!”</p><p>Eric stares straight at Coach Frumm and the ring of sweat blooming out from under his arms. Everyone at the school knows that he’s Ramsey’s stepfather or figures out soon enough. Ramsey’s black and Coach Frumm is so pale he just about glows. And there’s rumours that his family is out from around Stone Mountain. </p><p>But he and Ramsey have an okay relationship, which means Bitty would have to imagine Coach Frumm as part of the wedding party and he can’t help but think about the way Coach Frumm would ruin all the pictures with how sweaty he gets. </p><p>That kind of agitates Eric, so he has to switch tactics, leaving thoughts of what flowers would offer a pop of soft color to the wedding to instead remember the steps for a baked Alaska. It’s an easy one, but it's more interesting trying to think about how he’d get the whipped cream to set in this heat than follow the spiral of panic that squeezed a little tighter when he thought about how he might arrange folks by height or age or relation to hide Coach Frumm’s sweated through suit jacket.</p><p>“Now, as you know, the safest way to...date each other is to do it abstinently,” Coach Frumm says, “Doesn’t matter what they’re tellin’ you on the...the Twitter or Tweeter or whatever it is. Staying abstinent is the only way to stay <em>safe</em>.”<br/>
 <br/>
Eric snorts quietly before he can stop himself. Last he heard, that horse had already left the barn with more than half of the Junior class, including Nia Frumm, the coach’s own baby girl.</p><p>“This is bullshit,” someone mutters, loud enough for Eric to hear even though they’re a few people apart. “I was fingering Melissa Evans two years ago--the fuck are they telling us this now for?” </p><p>Eric grimaces. He’d had roughly the same thought, but he hates hearing the way other boys talk about girls, and sex and the things they claim to have done. Besides, he’s got 6th period with Melissa and she’s always seemed like a nice girl. Eric can’t believe she’d do anything nasty like that with any of these knuckleheads. </p><p> </p><p>Coach Frumm shifts to the side, standing uncomfortably close to one of the football players Eric doesn’t know, one that had come in late--probably shocked someone was making him attend a class--and pointed his clicker at the projector’s screen.</p><p>The pictures pop up and Eric squeezes his eyes shut and listens to the boys around him groan and jeer. He’d only just caught sight but that was enough to make out pustules oozing green and white.</p><p>They’d done this in the 8th grade too, the last time Eric had sex ed. It hadn’t been the first time he’d seen a penis othe than his own. This was smack in the middle of the period where he was still praying for God to take away all the sinful thoughts he’d been having since he accidentally found one of his Daddy’s dirty magazines and realized that he didn’t care what the lady part of the couple was doing. </p><p>But he remembers how that instructor, some lady the school brought in every year just for these lessons, had told them that these were STDs, the consequences for pre-martial sex. </p><p>And then she’d shown them pictures of men’s hips and thighs, too, covered in scabs and taught them about AIDS. </p><p>Eric’s in 11th grade now, he’s had access to the internet and he knows how to do research, but it doesn't mean he’s forgotten the way the lady’s lips curled when she told them that AIDS was a punishment for a very specific sin, and the way it felt like people turned to look at him.</p><p><br/>
“Now boys,” Coach Frumm starts again when they finally, finally stop yelling. “<em>This </em>is what happens if you’re not abstinent. A young lady might tell you that she hasn’t done nothin’ with no one, but you can’t trust just anyone. You slip once and next thing you know, you’re knocking on the nurses door, hollerin’ about how your johnson’s all red and steaming hotter’n an oven.”</p><p>Bitty’s cycling through fantasies. His and Ramsey’s wedding feels too close, too much like someone could smell the gay on him if he thinks about it too much. The glaze on a good, cooled poundcake looks too much like the gore on the screen. There’s his first day at Samwell, the hockey scholarship he’s heard about. He’s not on the right kind of team here, but he’s got time to figure that out. He’s only just started his research but Samwell is right. Samwell is safe for him. He’s read about the kind of sex ed they get up North. He knows they don’t have the kind of prejudice--the kind of stupidity Eric’s got to deal with down here. He can’t wait--he can’t wait to get out of here. </p><p>“Bet Bittle knows all about this,” Eric hears. His stomach tightens. “They all do, the ones that have got a little honey in their tank. They’re all fuckin’, giving each other diseases and shit. Fags.” </p><p>“You mean sugar? It's sugar, stupid.”</p><p>“I don’t give a fuck man, they’re freaks. My girl, she’s on the skate team or whatever. She hangs out with them and she’s always talking about them. They’re basically just girls anyway.”</p><p><br/>
Bitty starts his fantasies over again.</p><p><br/>
⬤⬤⬤⬤</p><p><br/>
Oh it’s alright, baby,” Mama says and blows her bangs off her forehead. “We can let her rest. I don’t know why this old girl isn’t heating evenly.”</p><p><br/>
She bangs the side of the giant boiler. Half the jam is done--it’s a touch too sweet, not as even as Auntie’s, but Mama never needs to know that. The other half will half to wait til the water heats up again. Their ancient oven is temperamental on the best days and Eric knew it would eventually give up the ghost for a few hours on jam day. Bertha giving out on jam day was just as traditional as Mama insisting that she’d perfected the recipe and this year was the year she’d show Auntie up.</p><p>“Tell me, Dickie, you still dating that nice girl from the other highschool?” Suzanne sits down at the kitchen table and picks up her glass to take a long sip while Eric reaches for something to say.</p><p>Eric wouldn’t ever tell her, because it's too nice of a thing to say and he knows that boys aren’t supposed to be too nice to their Mamas unless they want people to start whispering, but he thinks she’s the prettiest now--when her cheeks have gone the color of strawberries and milk and she’s got all her hair piled on top of her head and she’s looking at him expectantly. Coach has always been the head of their household but Eric knows that she’s the one who runs their home on the power of this look alone.</p><p>He could tell the truth. Truthfully, he could have told it to her again and again by now. There have been a hundred little moments like this, and it seems like they’re piling up now, nearing the end of summer and the end of his time in Madison for a good long while.</p><p>“No,” Eric sighs, “No, Mama. Actually, I--”</p><p>The backdoor swings open and hits the wall and they both jump.</p><p>“What on Earth,” Mama says standing up. “Richie?”</p><p>Coach pops his head into the kitchen, “Come here, baby.”</p><p>Suzanne heads out the backdoor, curious expression firmly in place and when she gasps Eric gets up to follow. His Mama and Coach are a lot of things and obtrusive is sometimes one of them but they’re usually quiet people, not the type to make a scene in the driveway.</p><p>There’s a Best Buy delivery truck on their driveway, beeping as it lowers the new oven onto the pavement. The delivery guy is talking quietly with Coach, laughing and patting him on the shoulder. Eric’s never quite figured out how men know when it's ok to touch each other, how much and how long before it gets weird. That’s why he never touches any of the men around him and freezes up whenever any one tries to throw an arm around his shoulder or, God forbid, touch his hair. </p><p>Bitty always says yes when his Mama asks if he wants to head out to the mall with her but he gets bored of following her around Macy’s pretty quick. He’s spent more than his fair share of time in Best Buy studying different appliances and daydreaming about which ones he’d like in a cute little house to share with someone. </p><p>He recognizes this model and knows it's pricey, one of the more expensive ovens in the store. </p><p>“Richie,” Mama breathes, “What on earth?”</p><p>Eric’s stomach twists into a knot and pulls so hard his breath comes up short. </p><p>He spends too much time with his Mama. The whole world makes sure to remind him on a regular basis that it's not normal, that he should be over the phase where he’s up under her all the time, that he’s reached the point of young manhood where he’s allowed to stop listening to women in general. </p><p>He generally pays all of that no mind--he loves his Mama, she’s his best friend, and he’s learned plenty from her. He’s learned to bake, to cook a little, basic sewing, plenty about managing the bills, and how to make an impression when they have the parents from Coach’s team over to visit. </p><p>She’s the person who taught him all the ways to bless someone’s heart and make them think you really mean it. And he knows how to hear when she sounds sweet but cream would curdle on her tongue.</p><p>Coach clearly hasn’t paid enough attention because he laughs his big, Coach laugh and sweeps her up into his arms for a big kiss against the side of her head. Her smile is wide and white and spider web cracked.</p><p>Afternoon comes and goes and evening finds Bitty and Mama in the same places, more or less. The jams have been cooked and cooled and jarred. The backdoor is still open, this time to let in slips of cooler air and the sound of cicadas. </p><p>Coach has retreated into his basement and Bitty sits, fiddling with his phone and watching Mama. She’d announced that the new oven required a special recipe as a test and went into the storage pantry and came out with an arm full of supplies. </p><p>She’s standing at the oven now, dropping honey comb into a pot. </p><p>She’d been humming, but now she says, “Dickie?”</p><p>“Yeah, Mama?” Eric says, looking up from his phone. He’d been staring at the notepad where he keeps ideas for a Youtube channel. None of them felt quite right, just yet. </p><p>“I know you don’t like to talk about your relationships, and that’s fine.”</p><p>Eric puts his phone down and looks at her. </p><p>“It’s ok to be private,” she sighs, and reaches up to brush a loose strand of hair away, “Folks don’t value it as much these days, but there’s nothing wrong with discretion.”</p><p>Eric doesn’t say anything. </p><p>“I just hope you treat her right,” Suzanne says. She stirs the mixture in the pot a little, then says, “I just hope you remember that if you don’t treat her right, she’ll find someone who will. There’ll always be someone willing to do what you won’t. They’re always easy to find.” </p><p><br/>
Eric doesn’t say anything then, but when he asks Jack about the regular transfers from their bank to an account he doesn’t recognize and Jack doesn’t have an answer, he thinks about his Mama’s new oven. It had been replaced two times over (another from Coach, most recently by Bitty). There were ovens, new clothes, new jewelry, trips, a horse that was swiftly returned when Coach was reminded that Mama was afraid of them. </p><p>When he and Jack got married, Bitty thanked Coach for showing him what to look for in a good husband. Coach squirmed and Bitty let it roll off his back like he’d learned to do with all the other times when Coach’s insistence of his acceptance didn’t quite line up with the way he treated Bitty and Jack. </p><p>But now, watching Jack twitch and bite off half-finished sentences--he didn’t even love Bitty enough to have a lie prepared--Bitty thinks that maybe Jack was the one learning things from Coach, not him. </p><p>Bitty turns to his oven--in need of replacement--and takes a single, deep breath in and exhales, loud enough for Jack to hear. If it's just sex, Bitty can live with that. It’s not like he hasn’t had his own thoughts. There have been moments--at the conventions for Youtubers where people know him for something other than being married to Jack--and God knows there are things he wants that Jack doesn’t. </p><p>He doesn’t know when what they do stopped being enough for Jack, but he can fix that. He can be less bossy, he can tuck his ragged edges in the way all the hockey wives have, unfurling himself for special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. If Jack feels like he has to go somewhere else for peace and quiet, Bitty can take note. He can be Jack’s peace.</p><p><br/>
He lets Jack fumble through the rest of his lie, something about a charity, a mix up, his intentions to tell Bitty, his failing memory, and he tugs on a smile--wide, white and not a spiderweb crack in sight.</p><p> </p><p>⬤⬤⬤⬤</p><p> </p><p>“Ok, y’all,” Bitty says, smiling into the camera’s red-blinking eye. “So you mix the sugar in a few tablespoons at a time, not too much or things will go all grainy. Then you take your orange syrup and almond lizard--almond silvers--almond--ugh!”</p><p>The spoon clatters onto the counter and Bitty sits down on the barstool behind him. The video has to go up tomorrow and he’s still got to edit and take photos of the finished cake. He’s got orange and lemon slices to cut and sugar. He doesn’t have time to try this line over and over again. The test cake had come out delicious but too dull of an orange and he doesn’t have time to go out and get more flour for a third attempt.</p><p>He closes his eyes and rubs at them til he sees little fireworks. The oven beeps and he glances over it. It’s nice but a little older. They’d built the house recently, he’s not sure why it's degraded so much so quickly.</p><p>He’s not sure why this isn’t working. The first few years Bitty Bakes and Bitty Blogs grew exponentially. Even after the first surge after the kiss, he’d kept growing. Even after Jack stopped agreeing to pop in to videos--all the odds are in Bitty’s favor. He’s read all the blogs and watched posts and talked with other people--white gay boys with faint Southern accents don’t have failing videos. Not the ones who try hard enough, and stay up til all hours of morning editing and shooting fixes over and over again.</p><p>He already checks so many boxes. Maybe he could get Ransom or Lardo to help him out with a few videos. He hasn’t spoken to either of them in a month of Sundays, but they’re friends, right? That’s the kind of thing friends do for each other. </p><p>Bitty looks up at the heavy three-thump sound of Jack approaching. Bitty’s playing Beyonce--B’Day, Lemonade played before but it's not Bitty’s favorite of her albums, it always struck him as a little too serious--but Bitty’s got something like sonar when it comes to Jack moving around the house. </p><p>He has to remind himself that this is good, the physical therapist cleared Jack for walking around the house ages ago, as long as he uses his cane.</p><p>“Hey,” Jack says. He’s pale, drawn and ashen from the normal lovely, creamy tone of his skin beneath his stubble. Bitty makes a mental note to look into finding an esthetician nearby. He still misses the one near Jack’s old apartment. </p><p>Also, he thinks idly, he’d watched Jack take his medicine this morning and he’d taken the day-of-the-week separator and put it back in the not-hidden hiding space they both pretend doesn’t exist. There’s nothing more important to worry about then getting Jack something to soften those dark bags he’s developing beneath his lovely, dark lashes.</p><p>“Hey,” Jack says again and Bitty realizes he’s hoarse. Bitty’s hands curl together. It’s been a year since Jack’s surgery and Bitty’s more familiar with the smell and sight of charcoal than he really wants to be. Jack had better keep talking or Bitty was going to give him the talk of his life on the way to the hospital.</p><p> </p><p>Jack comes closer and puts the manila folder on the table, just shy of the spread of Bitty’s flour. </p><p>“What’s this?” Bitty asks, holding up his floury hands. “Can you open it?”</p><p>“It’s divorce papers,” Jack says plainly. </p><p>Which is odd, because it sounded like Jack said they were divorce papers. </p><p>“What?” Bitty asks and flips his phone over to turn the music--Resentment, now--off. </p><p>“They’re divorce papers,” Jack says. </p><p>Which is odd, because it sounded like Jack said--</p><p>“What,” Bitty says again because that couldn’t be right.</p><p>“Bits,” Jack says, “Bitty, it’s not working. We’re not happy.”</p><p>Bitty thinks about his Mama’s oven, the string of nicer and nicer gifts, the women he never saw but haunted his Mama’s house anyway. </p><p>“No,” Bitty says, “We need to try harder.” </p><p>He looks at Jack, widening his eyes to let Jack see how glassy they’d gone. </p><p>“Baby,” Bitty said, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Baby, we’re a team, aren’t we? That’s what we said when we got married. Til death do us part? Sickness and health? This is just a road bump, this is just--just--,”</p><p>“People make mistakes,” Suzanne said to Bitty. He could hear her stirring cream into her coffee. He’s lost count of how many times he’s watched her sit in her house, stirring cream into her coffee, the charms of her bracelet just short of dripping into the swirl of white and black. </p><p>She’d never quite told him what mistakes his Daddy made, but Bitty’s grown enough now to guess. He’s seen Jack make the same ones.</p><p>Or, no, that’s not right. </p><p>She’d told him that one of the handful of times he’s cried in front of her. The cream was already in the coffee and he was home for the week, not too long after he asked Jack about their bank account. </p><p>“People make mistakes,” she’d said and Bitty’s never known if she was talking about Jack, or Coach, or Bitty, or herself. </p><p>“People make mistakes,” Bitty says, his Mama’s voice coming out of his mouth. “Jack, baby. People make mistakes, and I’ve forgiven you, a long time ago. We just need to try harder.”</p><p>“Forgiven me?” Jack asks, “Bitty--”</p><p>Anyway, Bitty knows Jack’s about as skittish as a horse, easily bedeviled and ready to run at the slightest signs of trouble. Bitty doesn’t know who’s gotten this silly idea into Jack’s head but it won’t work. If his Mama and Coach can get through whatever issues they had, he and Jack would do the same. He wouldn’t let Jack go and he wouldn’t disappoint his Mama. </p><p> </p><p>“We’ll do whatever it takes,” Bitty says, to himself and to Jack. Certain hope burst on his tongue and in his heart, sweet as honey. He’d do whatever he had to do to keep them together. There was someone out there willing to do anything he wouldn’t do for Jack and Bitty wasn’t going to give them the chance. </p><p> </p><p>⬤⬤⬤⬤</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, oh, that’s it,” Bitty sighs.</p><p>“You like that, baby girl?” Kent asks, rubbing a hand along Bitty’s thigh. </p><p>Bitty hates Kent. He hates the honey-dipped bullshit that falls from his mouth, he hates the way Jack watches him walk across the room, he hates the way they habitually dim the lights because he gets headaches. Bitty hates the way Kent sometimes pushes Bitty’s knees to his chest and wraps Bitty’s arm around them like he’s the <em>help</em>. </p><p>Jack’s the whole reason Bitty’s here, honestly. Bitty had only said yes to Kent because he’s made it his practice to say yes to whatever keeps Jack smiling. Jack hasn’t mentioned it in ages, but Bitty remembers Jack sliding a manila folder onto his table and trying to destroy everything they’d worked so hard for. </p><p>He doesn’t think about it quite as often as he thinks about the trips to the hospital after Jack retired, but it's a close second. </p><p>Bitty hates the way his toes curl every time Kent presses his mouth to whatever skin he can reach and calls Bitty “sweetheart” or “baby girl” and asks if today’s the day Bitty’s gonna let Kent get him pregnant. </p><p>Kent’s arm is turning white where Bitty’s fingers dig in. It’s preservation, not passion. They’re on Bitty’s desk and one wrong move and Bitty’s careful recipe record-keeping reverts back to the gape of a blank doc.</p><p>He and Jack have nice, married sex in their nice, white, marriage bed. They had their experimental phase back when Bitty was at Samwell and Bitty’s been fine with that. Sex isn’t his thing really. </p><p>“What the fuck do you mean sex isn’t your thing,” Marlena’d asked him when he’d told her, haltingly and under promise of death or ruin, just what he and Kent had been getting up to while Jack was out of the house. </p><p>Marlena was the queen of the Future First Wives club, even though she pretended she thought the whole thing was gauche. She was a decade older than Bitty and from what Bitty could tell she’d managed to have not been replaced via a combination of determination and palpable disdain for her husband. Bitty didn’t get it but Markov seemed to be into it.</p><p>On the rare occasion that wives were invited out to events (and he and Jack still got invites), Markov would include her in his gregarious orbit, circling back to check on her and say things in Russian that sounded affectionate to Bitty. She’d let him refill her drink and then banish him with a flick of her oxblood acrylics. </p><p>“Sex is the only thing we have,” Marlena said, sipping a vodka martini and watching a woman--the younger sister of somebody or other--approach Markov. “It’s the only control.”</p><p>“Marlena, girl. You can’t believe that,” Bitty says, glancing over his shoulder. Jack’s standing just slightly outside of a circle of players and Kent’s leaning against him, an arm around his shoulder and a beer in his hands. </p><p>“I don’t believe it,” Marlena said, her voice dragging his attention back, “I <em>know</em>. Your man, he’s good? He makes you feel good?”</p><p>Bitty’s cheeks went warm, even under the flush of a late August heat and several cocktails. </p><p>“Yes, yeah, Marl. He makes me feel good.”</p><p>“And he’s hung like a horse,” Marlena nodded, “I’ve heard this about Parson. Fuck him. Until you get bored or Zimmerman notices. What’s the worst that can happen? Divorce? That’ll happen eventually anyway.”</p><p>Those are the words Bitty remembers when Kent’s got him face down on his desk and Bitty can’t remember quite when Jack is coming back. Kent’s hung like a horse and he’s got the muscle tone and control of a former professional athlete and, most importantly, he wants to be here. </p><p>Bitty hadn’t realized just how badly Jack wanted to be anywhere else until he’d let Kent open him and shoved his cock up in Bitty like there was gold to be dug out. </p><p><br/>
Anyway, it was a one time thing. </p><p>He caught Jack slipping out again and Kent was there.</p><p>And it was one time thing. </p><p>And then Jack stopping slipping and just started walking. </p><p>And it was one time, again. </p><p>And then Bitty wasn’t so sure where Jack had gone, how long he’d been out and when he was coming back because Kent was here and all Kent wanted was--</p><p><br/>
“Give it,” Kent mutters to BItty’s neck, “Give me that cream, come on, pretty, touch it, touch it for me. Gonna lick it all up.”</p><p>Kent’s dirty talk sounds like someone who’d never graduated beyond staticky glimpses of tits and the errant ball on whatever staticky skinemax channel his parent’s TV accidentally picked up. It’s gross and makes Bitty’s stomach knot up with twinned embarrassment and pleasure and--look. </p><p>Bitty’s been called girly his whole life. He’s always been the smallest player on the team. Tasha and Ashley used to take turns lifting him while they played around on the ice. He’s gotten called a twink a couple times but he’s never quite figured out how anyone manages to be just sexy enough that they get called sexy and not just asked where their parents are. </p><p>He knows what he looks like and Kent’s the only person who called him little or pretty or girly and meant that it turned him on. Objectively, it's fucking weird. They’re adults. As far as Bitty can tell, even Bitty’s gotten closer to actually fucking a woman than Kent has--thanks wherever you are, Melissa Evans. </p><p><br/>
On the other hand, Bitty’s never done a dirty thing in his life, so when Kent asks if today’s the day he gets to put a bun in Bitty’s oven, it's fucking embarrassing and Bitty really wishes he wouldn’t but he also chokes on his own spit and hits his funnybone on the edge of his monitor and none of it matters because he’s coming so hard. </p><p> </p><p>⬤⬤⬤⬤</p><p> </p><p>The oven beeps and Bitty has to get up to turn it off because this is a heartfelt message, just like all the others he’s left and Jack doesn’t need to know he’s been baking.</p><p>“--Jack, please, I know this is hard. This is the hard part, but we’re a team. You don’t give up on your team, not in the hardest part of the play.”</p><p>Baking is about the same as breathing. He doesn’t think about it, he simply <em>is</em> baking. He didn’t pause to look up a recipe, he didn’t choose to pull out his favorite set of measuring cups any more than he opened up his nose and pulled air down, down into his lungs.</p><p>You breathe harder during an emergency, Bitty supposes. He slides the round pans out of the oven and settles them gently on the stove top. </p><p>Jack has been gone for three days. Kent told Bitty all he knew and then he’d disappeared into his room. They’ve been haunting respective sides of the house since then.</p><p>Bitty grabs his phone and dials Jack’s number again. As long as Jack's phone keeps ringing, as long as the mailbox isn't full, Bitty can have hope.</p><p>The fourth time Jack had been hospitalized for attempting suicide, Alicia came down. Which made sense. The fourth time had happened a month after the third time, which happened a couple of weeks after the second time. A pattern is a pattern, maybe even more so when you’re trying to ignore it. </p><p>Alicia had come down, wrapped in a smartly tailored pantsuit and her wedding rings on a delicate chain around her neck, glinting like honey in the sunlight. </p><p>She’d sat next to Bitty in those hard hospital chairs, watching Jack’s chest go up and down, and asked what, exactly, the plan was. </p><p>Bitty’s plan had been to get through this, and get through the next thing, until Jack was okay again. </p><p>That was Bitty’s plan then, and it's his plan now. </p><p>There isn’t anything they can’t do when they put their heads together, him and Jack. </p><p>They’d made history on the ice, in their own way. They’d opened up their home to an old, fraught friendship and even if things were currently crashing and burning, Jack and Kent had been doing good at first. </p><p>Bitty was getting an <em>award</em> this week just for inspiring little gay boys everywhere. </p><p>Christ, what was he going to do about the award? He’d told the nice folks at Trevor Project that him and Jack would both be there. If he showed up and had to sit next to an empty seat all night, people would ask questions and he’d have to have an answer about where Jack was right now.</p><p>Kent slinks into the kitchen just as Bitty’s ending his latest voicemail. </p><p>Bitty watches him.</p><p>He’s fresh from the gym. Bitty can smell his sweat from the other side of the room. </p><p>He doesn’t look at Bitty when he goes to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of water and a bowl of pre-made chicken salad.</p><p>This morning Kent had licked him out like a cat with a saucer of cream and now he pretends Bitty isn’t in the room. </p><p>Fucking typical. </p><p>He cracks open the water and takes long pulls, throat bobbing. </p><p>Bitty puts down his phone and crosses his arms. </p><p>Kent finishes drinking and finally glances at him. </p><p>Bitty looks back, tilts his head up and bites his bottom lip, just so.</p><p>Marlena taught him that one.</p><p>He and Jack are a team, and every team needs support. He can have this, just like Jack can keep a whore on retainer for years and make Bitty sign off on her payments while looking the other way. Relationships are built on little white lies like that.</p><p>No bud, I’m going to see my therapist this week, no one else.</p><p>No honey, I’d never sleep with your best friend, like you failed to do. </p><p>“Have you heard back?” Kent asks, coming close enough to put his hands on Bitty’s hips. </p><p>Bitty ignores the question, leans up to kiss Kent. Kent doesn’t deserve to be here, the only reason Bitty said yes was to keep Jack happy. The only reason Kent’s here now is that Bitty needs the distraction and Kent’s doing a shit job of that because he keeps asking after Jack. </p><p>“I want you to put me up on the counter and blow me,” Bitty says, because Kent is nothing. He’s nothing to Bitty, he’s no one to keep happy, and he can either do what Bitty wants or he can get the fuck out. </p><p>Bitty doesn’t remember when that part stopped being fun, but now it's the only part of this whole mess he gets to keep, so he’s going to keep punching that particular card. </p><p>Anyway, Kent looks good with a mouthful. </p><p>That’s the main thing Bitty is thinking when he’s got his pants around his ankles, his cock in Kent’s mouth and the idea strikes him. </p><p>Kent looks good with a mouthful. He’s not like Jack. He looks good on his knees, even if he makes you work for it a little. For all his ‘baby girls’ and ‘wifeys’, Kent’s just as happy taking direction as he is to overwhelm Bitty with his size and his eagerness. </p><p>He looks good on camera. He’d look good in a suit--some kind of cream and camel number that they could but on a rush order. Cashmere, maybe. Kent’s the type that ought to be wrapped up in luxury. </p><p>The flight to New York leaves in a few days--enough time to come up with an explanation of where the hell Jack is and why no one should question Bitty and Kent stepping out together. </p><p>And it’s not like they don’t look good together. Bitty hasn’t kept around many gay friends and even he’s aware of the phenomenon of gay people dating their doppelgangers. </p><p>The comment section of his videos would be wrecked for a few days, maybe even a few weeks. But they were going to be a mess anyway if Bitty showed up without Jack. His fans had an outsized adoration of Jack. They loved him in a way that makes Bitty grind his teeth and beg Jack to just show up occasionally. But they were moldable. They’d taken to Lardo and Shitty on their occasional appearances. They could be convinced if Bitty gave them a pretty enough picture.</p><p>Bitty slips his thumb into Kent’s mouth, just to see him adjust. Kent wasn’t ever going to be his white knight, and he’s here shieldless, swordless, and Jackless. The least Kent could do is be the horse for Bitty to ride in on. </p><p><br/>
<br/>
⬤⬤⬤⬤<br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>The flight home from New York is short and awful. Bitty’s throat hurts from talking all through yesterday and his hair of the dog approach to this morning’s hangover is slamming into his head now. </p><p>The flight’s not long enough to order wine or a gin and tonic or something. He thinks about the small stash of Jack’s extra pills that he’d spirited into his overnight but even half of one makes Bitty loose-boned and floaty for the next six or seven hours. </p><p>He doesn’t need to be on necessarily--whatever taste of fame he’d felt at the Trevor Project awards certainly didn’t follow him past check out this morning (or brunch, if he’s being generous and ignores the slightly more famous people he’d noshed with)--but Jack’s missing and people are going to start noticing soon. There wouldn’t be a lot of press but catching the husband-and-possible-widower of Jack Zimmerman walking around an airport, so blitzed that Kent Parson has to lead him to the Uber pick up line is at least merits someone’s very popular tweet. </p><p>So Bitty sits in his window seat, grinding his teeth as the pair of children sitting behind him horse around, their feet regularly finding the back of his seat. If he were with his Mama, he’d make a slightly too loud comment about some parents needing to take a firm hand to a couple of bottoms. But he’s here with Kent and he feels safe assuming Kent’s got the same soft progressive approach to corporal punishment as most Yanks Bitty knows. </p><p>Jack had popped that particular hope before Bitty had barely gotten the word “babies” out of his mouth but any time Bitty had mentioned his Mama instructing him to go get a switch, Jack’s face had twisted up into some shameful combination of pity and horror. So Bitty stopped telling those stories. It didn’t matter anyway. They weren’t having babies. Hell, Bitty might not have a husband anymore. </p><p>He waves down a flight attendant--those buttons never seem to move the girls fast enough, even in first class.</p><p>Kent watches him ask for tissues from across the aisle. Bitty ignores him. </p><p><br/>
“I don’t know why they insisted on booking us on United,” Bitty sighs, unlocking the door, then reaching to disable the security alarm. “Give me Delta any day.” </p><p>Kent makes a non-committal noise. That’s fine, Bitty never needs a partner for a little non-competition complaining. </p><p>“I’ll order something for lunch,” Bitty says, “Could you drop my luggage in the bedroom?”</p><p>Bitty hands Kent the luggage before he can answer and heads toward the kitchen. </p><p>He needs a shower and carbs. He might be nice and make him and Kent a cocktail. He hadn’t noticed how much he’d limited his drinking around Jack. That wasn’t Jack’s particular poison but when Jack started making noises about finding NA meetings, Bitty had reshaped his own habits--he’d stopped buying liquor, ordered white wines when they were out. </p><p>Last night felt easy, with a couple gin and tonics and at least one whiskey and coke stolen from Kent. His speech felt easy. Networking with people more famous than him but not quite as famous as people he knew personally was a peach. And pouring himself and Kent into bed afterward felt easy. Kent couldn’t get hard, no matter how much rubbing and rocking Bitty did, but it was simple enough to crawl up to straddle his face and slide home in his mouth. </p><p>Other than the icy hand clamped around his stomach every time anyone asked where Jack was, which only happened a few times, the whole thing felt easy. Smooth. Effortless. </p><p>Bitty forgot how it felt to not put forth so much fucking effort. </p><p>He sighs and leans against the island, looking at Bess. It’d been a little bit of a tradition and a little bit a joke, giving such an old maid name to such a slick piece of equipment. The oven did half as much as his laptop, dinging and sending text messages and flashing a funny little dancing blue light on it's display when it was done preheating. </p><p>Just like it was now. </p><p>Panic shoots up Bitty’s throat, so acrid and burning he tries to swallow back vomit that isn’t there. Fuck. He’d left the oven on over their trip. He’d given the house cleaners the week off so they wouldn’t ask questions about Jack, so there was no one here to turn it off. </p><p>Bitty rests a shaky hand to the marble top of the island. The house could have burned down. His home--what would that look like, his husband going missing and his house burning down in a matter of days. Christ, Bitty could have end up on the murder channel or one of those awful podcasts. </p><p>“Uh, Bitty,” Kent calls from the bedroom like Bitty needs another fucking thing. </p><p>Bitty rushes forward to turn the oven off and a voice behind him says, “Hey. I was using that.”</p><p>Jack is frowning at him when Bitty turns.</p><p>Bitty’s Mama didn’t just teach him how to treat a man. She’d taught him how to keep one, even when she didn’t realize. She’d made herself pretty and sweet and irreplaceable in Coach’s life. Whatever flings he may have had, she was the one who paid his bills, who got his taxes done, who made meals for the team’s parent mixers, who filled out the paperwork so Bitty could go to that fancy school up North. </p><p>Bitty only has one concrete memory of his parents fighting. And it wasn’t so much a fight as his mother, standing in the threshold of the front door and Coach holding her hand and promising to try again. </p><p>Suzanne Bittle--with diamonds on her knuckles and a maiden name no one in town bothered to recognize or remember-- was still able to bring her man to his knees when she needed to. Bitty didn’t want anything more than he wanted to have that kind of power. </p><p>Jack stood in front of Bitty, a slight frown on his face. Bitty didn’t know what his Mama felt when she took a step back and let Coach close the door but he could guess that it felt something like victory.</p><p>“Honey,” Bittys says. </p><p>There’s nothing behind Jack's eyes, his pupils are blown out, so big Bitty has to look for the thin ring of pale blue. He still looks slightly perturbed about the oven. </p><p>Bitty doesn’t know what Suzanne felt when she won the war after half a lifetime of seceded battles.</p><p>“Will you turn it back on?” Jack says and rubs a hand against his cheek.</p><p>Bitty hadn’t planned to change his name, when they got married. There wasn’t a lot of precedence. He had a few distant cousins who’d kept their names. One was a lesbian that Bitty hadn’t known about until he’d come out and she’d reached out to him. The other hadn’t stayed married long enough for all the right paperwork to go through. And he was a man. Men kept their last name, he’d known that his whole life. </p><p>He doesn’t move and Jack sighs and moves deeper into the kitchen, around Bitty to turn the oven back on. He turns and leans down to press a kiss to Bitty’s head and goes back into the house, back to the bedroom.</p><p>Suzanne is the reason Bitty is, legally, Eric Richard Zimmerman. She didn’t particularly like that Jack called him Bitty but Bitty always thought she didn’t approve because they were married now. Coach called her all sorts of babys and sweeties but never Suzy, like her sister did. </p><p>Bitty thinks now it's because she knew something Bitty didn’t quite know at the time. It’s jarring, to be reminded who has the option to come and go in a marriage. But if Bitty is a Zimmerman too, if he’s always a Zimmerman, then Jack always has to contend with him. </p><p>He can try to leave all he wants but Bitty is a Zimmerman too and Jack has to come back.</p><p>Bitty follows Jack down the hallway to the bedroom. </p><p>Kent is still there, leaning against the tall chest of drawers across from their bed. Jack is there too, his hand on Kent’s jaw and he’s leaning in to kiss Kent. </p><p>Bitty sort of misses a few weeks ago, when that would have been surprising. </p><p>Kent’s kissing back, which is good. He’s got a hand in Jack’s shirt and he’s white knuckled, which Bitty can relate to. </p><p>Jack sighs a noise into Kent’s mouth that Bitty can’t categorize. He tries to imagine explaining any of this to his Mama or Marlena or the therapist he’s certainly going to get after this and comes up with nothing.</p><p>Kent was Bitty’s third greatest fear during the first year of his and Jack’s relationship, right after the team and Bitty’s parents finding out. After they came out, Bitty had bigger things to worry about. <br/>

By the time Kent came out to play for the Rangers, the worry had sparked up but was put out easily enough. When he’d been traded around the Metropolitan Division and Jack floated the idea of trying to rekindle their friendship Bitty grit his teeth and played supportive. He’d come to tolerate Kent and when Jack turned out to be cheating, but with some woman Bitty would never have to meet, something in Bitty had relaxed. </p><p>He could live with sharing some of Jack’s time, if it meant he had less time to sit in his misery and devise new and exciting ways to send himself to the hospital. </p><p>Perhaps Bitty was less concerned about Kent because finding your husband overdosed three or four times post-career ending injury seemed to trump finding a hockey fling OD’d on anxiety meds before either of you managed to make it to the league by quite a lot. </p><p>Bitty walks up to both of them, wrapping an arm around either of them and nudging his nose, then mouth along Kent’s neck. He has Jack’s last name and he’d had Kent for months now. He has more rights to this than either of them.</p><p>Jack jumps a little when Bitty makes contact, pulling away from the kiss with a quiet smack. The hand he’d automatically rested on Bitty’s back is shaking.</p><p>Bitty looks up at him through lowered lids, his mouth still on Kent. If it's a show Jack wants. Bitty slips his tongue out, tracking a delicate line across Kent’s neck, up to the shell of his ear. It’s not really a thing he and Kent do--Kent fucks Bitty like he’s stealing something, which, depending on the version of marriage vows you’re subscribing to, maybe he is. </p><p>But he and Jack fuck like a married couple and if what Jack wants is a little more excitement, Bitty in duplicate, another somebody to bend over, then Bitty can give him that too. If Jack brings the peaches, Bitty will always bring the cream.</p><p>Kent pulls away from Bitty, which is inconvenient. </p><p>“I have to go,” he says, which is worse.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It's important to me that you know that this chapter was a (loose) sestina</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. ex-boyfriend, give us a song</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title is from Los Campsinos' Glue Me</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kent wakes up in an unfamiliar hotel room with a pounding headache. So basically, it's a Tuesday.</p><p>There’s a person beside him, turned away, and sleeping fitfully. Christ, he’s slipping. He never lets them stay over on roadies. He barely lets them stay over when he’s at home because he’s an idiot who gave multiple of his ill-raised teammates keys to his house and standing invitations.  </p><p>He’s not sure what city they’re in and other than his head--which is literally fucking pounding, he can hear the blood swishing in his temples--he isn’t sore, so they must have won.</p><p>“Hey,” Kent says and winces at the icepick driving right between his eyebrows “Hey, you gotta go.” </p><p>“I canceled,” the person says, poking their head out from under the comforter. “I don’t need to be anywhere til 1.” </p><p>Bitty looks at him, one eye closed.</p><p>The list of things Kent doesn’t remember is probably long (how’s he supposed to know?) but the list of things he sort of remembers, if he takes the time to piece it together, is a lot longer.</p><p>Kent doesn’t remember the last hit. He doesn’t remember the game, but that part is less interesting. Kent’s forgotten more hours than most of those fuckers ever got to play.</p><p>Kent doesn’t remember a lot of things but he won’t ever forget that he was on top.</p><p>He doesn’t remember the first few days in the hospital, but that’s more about the drugs--the good drugs, the kind the league shelled out when they thought they might get him back for another year--than his broken brain. </p><p><br/>The problem is that the memory problems aren’t even a particularly shitty superpower. At least then, he’d be able to turn it on and off at will. </p><p>He still doesn’t exactly remember what city they’re in, but he remembers Bitty treating him like a Ken doll all last night--from tucking him into a white and brown suit that washed him out to cursing at him because of an unfortunate case of whiskey dick and then fucking Kent’s mouth--right. That’s why the headache. All the fucking cameras. </p><p>If it was a superpower, he could forget the way Jack had looked at Kent when he asked to watch Kent fuck his-- fuck Bitty. Kent would love to scrub the look on Jack’s face when Kent said no from his brain, if not from the very folds of the universe and time and space. </p><p>He’s known Jack Zimmerman most of his life in some form or fashion. He won’t ever forget how to hear the things Jack asks for, even when he won’t use his big boy words.</p><p>Anyway, most of what he remembers about him and Jack is still in place. He remembers the gas-and-spark feeling the first time he met Jack. He remembered all his carefully laid plans of dealing with his particularly pesky case of gay after retirement melting away the first time Jack looked at him a little too long. He remembers growing up together. He remembers finding Jack on the floor of Zimmerman's shitty little pool house and the way he’d thought Jack was just drunk until his breathing started slowing down.</p><p>How they got from making out in Jack’s shitty, smelly dorm room to being the type of manly, adult friends who swapped grill tips and spouses is a little blurry. Kent assumes it involved a lot of hockey and Jack pretending whatever feeling slipped out of his little jar of repression were Kent’s and not his. </p><p>Kent knows that when Jack sat on the bench and asked him to fuck Bitty, like they all knew Kent had been doing for a while now, he’d been asking for Kent to fuck Bitty in front of Jack and it was a short jump to fucking Jack and an even shorter stroll to holding Jack afterward. </p><p>The seventeen-year-old version of himself that lives in his head and the thirty-two-year-old version of himself still haven’t quite come to a consensus on why exactly he said no. </p><p>He follows Bitty to brunch and to the interview he has in the afternoon. He naps behind his sunglasses in the airport and smiles at the kids behind Bitty who are playing some kind of pretend game a touch too loud. </p><p>Jack’s been missing for a week and Bitty’s preternaturally calm about the whole thing. </p><p>He’s mostly not talking to Kent but Kent’s been able to piece together that Bitty’s a little less panicked because Jack sometimes turns up missing for a few hours and it's somehow better than when he’s around the house because that’s when Bitty finds him on the floor somewhere and then they have to go to the hospital. </p><p>Personally, Kent thinks that a history of suicide attempts would make a sudden, days long disappearance more concerning, not less. But hey, he only found the guy once. From what Bitty’s said, on purpose and accidentally, there was a stretch after Zimm’s injury where this was all part of the routine.</p><p>Kent thinks they’re crazy. And Kent knows from crazy. But he doesn’t stop fucking Bitty and he hasn’t called for any more search parties than Bitty has, so where’s his room to judge?<br/><br/></p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸</p><p><br/>When Kent walks into Bitty’s bedroom and Jack’s sitting on the bed, he aches for Nevada. Just leaving was always an option in Nevada. Desert stretched out around them and if someone left the city and just didn’t show up anymore, people were willing to stop looking eventually. </p><p>In Nevada, Kent could have got into one of his cars and just kept driving until all of this wasn’t his fucking problem anymore. </p><p>Jack gets him up against a wall, gets his tongue in Kent’s mouth, and his hand on Kent’s jaw. Bitty finds them and decides to insert himself, which is funny because Kent’s main coherent thought, under the confusion and irritation over being dragged into Jack’s drama again, is that Jack’s kissing him like he’s Bitty. </p><p>Kent pulls away from Bitty’s questing tongue, pushes Jack’s hand off the curve of his jaw, and extracts himself from between them. They both say his name and assorted coaxing things but he keeps walking, out of the house and down the street, where he can get himself an uber to the nearest bar. </p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸</p><p>Kent doesn’t particularly remember the first few months of his retirement, but that’s mostly because every day looked the same. Sitting around a dark house, squinting at his phone because the lowest brightness was the only way he could stand to look at it but was also really fucking hard to see. Too many Korean tacos. A lot of pills, a lot of nausea. Nothing to really write home about. </p><p>The dizziness was the real thing. You can only find yourself at the bottom of your shower so many times before you start thinking that maybe you’ve done all the living you need to do. <br/><br/>The panic that stirs in his stomach every time he thinks that isn’t his own. Suicide is scary, he supposed, but his gut’s been twisting in these particular directions for a longer time than he cares to recall now.</p><p>It’s fucked, that he’s lost years or months or hours of memory but he can’t shake Jack and all the terrible things that come with him.<br/><br/></p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸<br/><br/></p><p>Her name is Kayleigh, which is terrible. Because it's a terrible name but also because it makes it a lot harder to ignore that she’s young enough to be his kid. </p><p>If she were a man Kent would be into that. He’s always been a little into the Daddy thing. He’d had some lofty dreams of playing it up since he was officially retired and could finally grow a decent beard. </p><p>Too bad he’d been busy having the world’s worst concussion and accidentally fucking himself into an episode of gay <em>Days of Our Lives</em>. </p><p>Speaking of gay--Kayleigh’s apartment is decorated in cool colors and surprisingly mature prints, so Kent’s not surprised when he catches sight of a couple vibrators when she’s rifling through her nightstand for lube. </p><p>Great. Kent could have gotten it up probably, but this is better. </p><p>Kayleigh holds the Hitachi to her clit and lets him lick into her, tracing her labia til he gets bored and switches to fucking her with his tongue. She gets wet fast and Kent drags his tongue through the viscosity, his nose going numb from being pressed against the bulbous white head of the vibrator. </p><p>Kayleigh holds her breath when she comes and squeezes her thighs around his head. He keeps going, because he needs to be good at this, and where she’d been too sensitive when they started, she squeals but lets him lick firmly against her clit. She shakes and groans and he keeps going because he loves a responsive audience. </p><p>After the third time, she pushes him away, demanding a break and Kent goes easily. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling and repeats her name-- KayleighKayleighKayleigh-- because repetition helps with a spotty short term memory and they don’t mean anything to each other but he does his best not to be shitty to people. </p><p>She must be recovering because she sits up and gives him a once over, eyes alighting on his soft dick. </p><p>“You ok?” she asks and Kent immediately feels bad for including her, even as a footnote, in his years-long psychodrama. </p><p>“Yeah,” he sighs, “It’s not you. I’m technically gay? I mean, you guys probably have a more specific word for it. I just needed to get out for a little while and you were so pretty.” </p><p>God her lights were bright. Kent can feel the beginnings of a migraine at the base of his skull. He’d taken meds this morning but they’d worn off by now. Normally it wouldn’t matter but he’s lost count of the stressful stimuli he’s encountered today. </p><p>“Oh wow,” Kayleigh says, “Why’d you need to get away?”</p><p>Kent isn’t really in the mood to explain the intricacies of a failed but seemingly permanent marriage, years of semi-unrequited love, and not enough therapists to a twenty-three-year-old named Kayleigh. </p><p>So he sighs and says, “It’s complicated. My friend and I are…”</p><p>In love? In lust? Doing a bad job of getting a handle on fifteen years of repressed feelings. Fighting over his husband? Are they fighting over Bitty? Does Kent even want Bitty now that he can technically have him whenever he wants?</p><p>Kent had shaken, when Jack left the room to go check on Bitty and the oven. It was adrenaline shaking, not the semi-regular too-long tremor that he’s noted as a problem for future Kent. He’d sat on their bed and shook like he’d already been thinking about what he’d say for Jack’s eulogy. He’d heard but couldn’t understand what they’d been saying in the kitchen and then Jack came back, tugged him up to standing, and kissed the hell out of him. </p><p>Kent hadn’t kissed Jack in fifteen years.</p><p>“My friend and I are thinking about hooking up,” Kent settles on, “And it would be complicated.” </p><p>“Hmmm,” Kayleigh hums. “Have you talked to him about it?”</p><p>Kent looks over at her, “You really don’t have to do this.”</p><p>Kayleigh shrugs, “Fair enough, keep your secrets. But communication helps. I’ve dumped so many boys because they wouldn’t just tell me what they want. Like, what, I’m supposed to read their minds? Please, who has the time for that.” </p><p>From where Kent’s sitting, Kayleigh’s got all the time in the world, but from what he remembers about being twenty-three, she doesn’t need him to tell her that. </p><p>Kent’s afraid she’s going to let him sleep over, but they talk a few more minutes about nothing in particular and she starts mentioning how early she has to be at work in the morning and it’s all the out Kent needs. </p><p>He stands on the curb in front of her apartment and squints at the Uber app, trying to find the address labeled JACK’S HOUSE. <br/><br/></p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸<br/><br/></p><p>The headache’s not spreading but it's a deep throb now and his visions started to get a little spotty as the Uber pulled up, so Kent’s not surprised when he wakes up around noon the next day. </p><p>His head feels tender to the touch and the sheets are too nice to feel rough against his skin but Kent can feel every place they fold and rest against him.</p><p> His stomach feels hollowed out with hunger, brunch and a handful of bar peanuts long gone. So he’s got no real choice other than to grab a shirt and his favorite at-home shades, the thick black frames settling across his face muffles some of the light attempting to scoop his eyeballs out.</p><p>Jack’s in the kitchen. Kent stumbles a little in his walk. Not because he’d forgotten what happened--emotionally significant events tend to leave an imprint. Even before Jack went missing he was always a little bit absent. Kent saw snatches of him, in the morning on the way out, in the evening, watching TV with them. Sleeping with your husband’s best friend out of loneliness seemed a little pedestrian for Bittle but it’s hard not to see it now. </p><p>“Morning,” Jack says softly, “Do you want breakfast?”</p><p>“What is it?” Kent asks, coming properly into kitchen. </p><p>“Toast,” Jack says, looking a little sheepish. “We might have some avocado.”</p><p>“Make the toast,” Kent says, “I’ll chop.” </p><p>Jack doesn’t try to talk to him, which is characteristic. Kent listens to the sharp sounds of him moving around the kitchen--footsteps, the metallic sounds of the toaster, the ringing clinking of plates against each other. Cutting an avocado is a blessedly quiet task and the ones Bitty had delivered right before their trip are lush in their ripeness. They split open like a dream under the meticulously sharp knife and the inside is buttery green and yellow. Kent’s mouth waters a little and he picks up one half to get the pit out. </p><p>“Hey,” Jack says from his side of their little operation. “Don’t, that’s not safe.”</p><p>Kent scoffs, “I’ve been pitting avocados for decades, Jack, it's fine.” </p><p>And when the tremors come, they come with a tingly, fizzing feeling up and down his arms anyway. He has warning.</p><p>Jack frowns and comes closer, plucking the avocado and knife out of Kent’s hand. Neither of them moves apart. Kent’s basically spooning Jack as he rests the avocado on its side and thunks the knife into the pit, slipping it out of its little depression. </p><p>Jack smells like woodsmoke. It’s faint, so faint Kent has to breathe deeply to be sure and when Jack glances over at him, their faces are close enough that when Kent murmurs, “You went to see Alicia?” they’re already kissing. </p><p>He and Bitty kissed. It wasn’t a Pretty Woman situation. They both liked kissing well enough and it was awkward, to act like it was more intimate to kiss than eat someone’s ass out. </p><p>Bitty kissed matter-of-factly, like it was neither pleasure nor chore to mash his mouth against Kent’s, it simply was. </p><p>Kent forgot that Jack tasted like diffidence. Kent doesn’t know how he does it, seeing as he definitely has to lean down to kiss Kent, but Jack gives it up like he’s never heard of the concept of leadership, much less tossed out several hundred trophies for it. </p><p>It makes Kent want to eat him alive. Jack’s always made Kent want to--to--<br/>He doesn’t have the words for the way Jack makes him feel. Kent wants to cover him, wants to put him on display so everyone in the world knows that he could do this one thing right--and that was show up for Jack. </p><p>Kent pulls away and gently tugs the knife out of Jack’s hand, settling it on the chopping board, pushes and turns Jack until he’s backed up against the table, and tugs his head down so Kent can kiss him properly. A hand around the back of his neck, another slipped under Jack’s shirt to rest against his ribs. </p><p>Kent’s so hungry. He’s teetering on the edge of nausea and his whole body is trembling. He needs to eat something. </p><p>Jack wraps both arms around Kent’s shoulders and lets his mouth fall open for Kent to lick into. He tastes like distant remnants of sugar and saliva and this is the thing that makes Kent curl his hand against Jack’s side and groan. </p><p>He slips his hand up into Jack’s hair and shifts so he can press their hips together. Jack is silent, but he tilts his head, just so, to offer Kent access to more of his mouth. That’s the Jack Kent remembers. Always happy to give it up.</p><p>“Good morning,” Bitty says. </p><p>Kent would happily keep kissing because he’s taken quite a few steps in his life to make sure that Eric Bittle isn’t <em>his </em>problem, but Jack jerks away from Kent like he’s been caught. </p><p>Which, fair.  </p><p>“Bits,” Jack says, sliding away from Kent. </p><p>Kent rolls his eyes and grabs a piece of toast and goes back to slicing avocado. </p><p>“We did some research last night,” Bitty says, apparently to Kent. “While you were...out. Clearing your head.” </p><p>Kent arranges the avocado slices on his toast, looks around to grab the thick flaked salt and, on a whim, red pepper flakes. Bitty bakes but doesn’t cook and Kent’s not sure Jack even can cook so they mostly eat take out. But Kent’s been feeling the itch to cook lately. Bitty would probably puff up like a cat about it but he’s got reading to do apparently. </p><p>“I went on a bender,” Kent says. Two or three beers doesn’t count as a bender by any definition, but he likes the way Bitty’s jaw goes tight with irritation when he says it. “Hooked up with someone. Kacey. Kylie. K-something.”</p><p>“Can you drink with your medications? You know I worry, Kent.” Bitty asks. Which is odd, because he didn’t ask Kent that when he was plying him with mimosas yesterday or stealing his Jack and cokes the night before. </p><p>Bitty glances at Jack, slow enough that Kent can’t miss. Ah. </p><p>“Research,” Kent says instead, taking a bite of his toast. </p><p>“Right!” Bitty says brightly, “After you left. We ordered some books about polyamory. We’re definitely going about it in an...untraditional way. We definitely need to have some conversations, all three of us. But this can work. Kenny.”</p><p>Kent stares at Bitty. </p><p>Suzanne Bittle came to visit them once, early on, when Kent spent more time in his dark bedroom alone than anywhere else. He’d come out briefly to say hello because, despite what Bitty and most hockey fans on the East coast believe he does, in fact, have manners. </p><p>Suzanne reminded Kent of his own mom in a lot of ways, which was uncomfortable because she was also pretty hot for an older lady. She had the same kind of velvet over steel kind of presence, plenty of smiles that didn’t quite meet her eyes, and a kind of motherly concern that felt like it came with a dotted line. </p><p>It explained a lot about Bitty.</p><p>“What?” Kent asks.</p><p>“We want to be with you,” Bitty says, coming closer to rest a hand on Kent’s hip, like that would distract him from the clear party lines drawn. “And we want you to be happy.”</p><p>Kent knows that there are people who build their whole lives around the concept of being happy. Personally, he prefers thrilled over happy, but that’s his own cross to bear. </p><p>He looks over at Jack, who probably hasn’t been either in a long time. Jack looks back at him and says nothing. </p><p>That’s that then. </p><p>“Why’d you come back?” Kent asks Jack. </p><p>“This is where I’m supposed to be,” Jack says, immediately and dutifully. </p><p>In the corner of Kent’s eye, Bitty smiles. </p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸</p><p><br/>Jack’s got a mistress or something. No one’s actually told Kent, but Bitty’s got big Wronged Woman Energy. It kind of sucks all the fun out of this. </p><p>Kent’s old enough to know it's totally possible for your dick to be hard but for proceedings to not be particularly fun. </p><p>“You like this, baby?” Bitty asks, and Kent’s not certain who it's directed at. </p><p>They’re in Jack and Bitty’s bed; not Kent’s first time there. He’s leaned against the headboard, Bitty writhing in his lap and tight around his dick and giving an Oscar-worthy performance. </p><p>Kent grabs Bitty by the hips and thrusts up a little, just gently, and Bitty lets out a guttural moan, pitching forward and pressing Kent harder against the headboard. </p><p>Jack’s at the edge of the bed, probably watching Kent’s cock disappears into Bitty’s ass. It’s hot, Kent’s still hard, it's not like he’s not going to get off to this. This isn’t Kent’s first time using you to get back at my husband rodeo. Not even his first time with said husband in the room. It might be the least fun though. </p><p>“Come here,” Kent says, wrapping an arm around Bitty’s waist to get him to stop moving and beckoning Jack over. </p><p>“He’s fine,” Bitty says, rolling his hips. “Focus.” </p><p>Again, Eric Bittle? Not his problem. </p><p>“Jack,” Kent says. </p><p>“I’m fine,” Jack says. “We’re fine.” </p><p>Kent rolls his eyes and shifts focus, muttering the stupid baby girl shit that gets Bitty going. He throws in some shit about Jack watching, because Bitty seems like the type that gets hot from revenge, too. </p><p>Bitty groans, more real this time, and starts riding him again with renewed enthusiasm. Kent reaches down to jerk him off, and Bitty comes quick, with all the normal gasping and mewling. </p><p>He goes easy when Kent tips him over on his side and doesn’t complain more than normal when Kent pulls out. </p><p>Kent untangles them and crawls over to Jack, getting into his lap. </p><p>“Hey,” Kent says and lifts up so he can be the one to lean down to kiss Jack for once. Jack opens for him, sweet as anything, and lets Kent rummage around, lighting on his canines, the wet velvet of his cheek, the creepy smooth of all his fake teeth. It’s a little like kissing a dead fish for a minute, Jack just letting it happen, but he warms up quickly enough, grabbing Kent’s ass with both hands and squeezing. </p><p>They make out like that for a few minutes, until Jack’s hard--which he wasn’t before--and inching his hips up in tiny waves to get more contact with Kent’s dick. </p><p>“Good,” Kent pulls back to purr. He watches Jack’s eyes go wide and then slit with pleasure when Kent says, “Good. Good boy.” </p><p>Kent doesn’t particularly remember what Jack’s dick felt like when they were seventeen but he was probably too worried about what his hands were doing to appreciate it then. Now, with Jack under him and his pupils blown with pleasure--probably--Kent can reach down and appreciate the way Jack feels, smaller than Kent but girthy, the soft skin of his cock catching on Kent’s lifting calluses.  </p><p>Kent reaches up to spit in his hand and grabs Jack again, just like old times. Jack sighs and lets his eyes close. </p><p>“We have lube,” Bitty says. His voice is hard, probably not intentional, and he’s leaned against the headboard now, arms crossed. His hair is all over his head and his cheeks are still flushed. He looks well fucked, but annoyed. </p><p>“I know,” Kent says and tucks his chin on Jack’s shoulder so he can’t turn to see Bitty without dislodging Kent. “But Jack likes this. Likes it a little dirty. Don’t you, Zimms?”</p><p>Jack makes a soft non-answer of a noise and nudges his hips up. Kent keeps moving his hand. </p><p>Bitty opens his mouth like he's about to argue, so Kent reaches up and pulls Jack’s hair. </p><p>Jack moans like Kent knew he would. Bitty’s eyes widen like Kent knew they would. </p><p>Kent keeps moving his hand, jerking Jack off at a perfunctory, almost mean, pace. He keeps his hand tight in Jack’s hair, pulling when Jack tries to move, or when he wants Jack to be louder. Bitty watches and Kent watches back.</p><p>When Jack’s breathing has gone fast and he’s kneading Kent’s ass in time to a whispered, “Kenny, please. Let me, let me.” he pushes Jack to the bed and kisses him, being sure to tilt so Bitty can see the wetness. </p><p>He feels it when Jack comes between them and doesn’t stop until Jack’s making high, shocked noises and flinching away from Kent’s hand. He still doesn’t ask Kent to stop, but Kent’s getting the feeling that Jack’s well-practiced in not asking for what he wants. </p><p>Kent pecks him one last time on the chin and climbs off. </p><p>He grabs his clothes off the floor and closes the door behind him. There is silence and then Bitty, very muffled, asking, “What was that?”<br/><br/></p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸<br/><br/></p><p>They go on a date. It’s a nice restaurant, something French that Jack refuses to translate for them. Dinner is nice. Dessert is nice. Everything’s so polite and measured and nice that Kent spends most of the night debating whether or not he can convince Jack to go to the bathroom for a handjob. When that stops being entertaining he starts flirting with their very professional waiter, just because it makes Bitty’s lip curl up in disapproval. Kent pays for all of it, because it makes Jack’s ears go red. <br/><br/></p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸</p><p><br/>“Oh,” Bitty says.</p><p>Kent looks over. Bitty’s fingers are white on the doorframe. </p><p>Jack pulls off Kent’s cock with a slurp and a pop that’s so perfect and so audible Kent’s certain it was on purpose. </p><p>“I didn’t know we were--,” Bitty starts. </p><p>Whatever he was going to say must not be that important, because he lets go of the doorframe, turns around and leaves.</p><p>Jack follows and Kent lets his head drop onto a pillow that smells just like Bitty’s overpriced shampoo. <br/><br/></p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸</p><p><br/>“We have a new rule,” Bitty says primly. Kent imagines Bitty has heirloom pearls somewhere in this house and doesn’t even bother doing anything interesting with them.</p><p>“You know I love rules, Bits,” Kent says, then takes a long drink of water. Jack’s gone, ostensibly to therapy and he and Bitty are in the kitchen, like they always are. </p><p>“Jack and I decided yesterday,” Bitty continues, like he hasn’t heard Kent. “We shouldn’t...make love. As pairs. There’s too much history. Between all the different parties.” </p><p>Kent takes his other hand off Bitty’s ass and nods. “Only threesomes. Got it.”</p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸</p><p><br/>Kent turns 35--Christ, halfway to the grave--and gets a migraine for his trouble. He takes the right meds and sleeps through his birthday and wakes up at eight that night. </p><p>When he stumbles into the only room lit up, the kitchen where Jack and Bitty are sitting and talking, Jack sees him first. He whispers a curse in French and disappears into the pantry room. </p><p>“Happy birthday to you, too,” Kent mutters and sits in Jack’s recently vacated seat. </p><p>His knee presses against Bitty’s, and Bitty flinches like he’s going to move away, but he must remember they’re being nice, because he presses back immediately after. </p><p>“Hey,” Bitty says, as softly as Bitty can say anything. </p><p>“Bittle,” Kent says and tugs his shades out of his jacket pocket. </p><p>“I’m not going to sing,” Jack says and then comes out of the pantry with a cake. </p><p>“Um,” Kent says. Jack ignores him and lights the tiny 3 and 5 candles. </p><p>“It’s vanilla soaked in cherry vanilla soak,” Bitty says. </p><p>“And arsenic?” Kent asks.</p><p>Bitty frowns at him and shakes his head. </p><p>“Kent,” Jack says and Kent rolls his eyes. </p><p>“Calm down, Dads,” Kent says and leans forward, “Just a joke. Bittle definitely wouldn’t poison me to have you all to himself, Jackie baby.”</p><p>Anyway, Kent updates his will once a month these days.</p><p>Kent blows out the candles and Jack and Bitty cheer so softly, so migraine-appropriate. </p><p>It's so grossly domestic Kent doesn’t fuck either of them on principle.</p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸<br/><br/></p><p>Bitty’s got soft hands. As far as Kent knows, it's been a few years since he’s picked up a stick, even to just mess around on the ice.</p><p>But they’re all on the couch, watching whatever video Youtube recommends after they watch Bitty’s latest vlog--in which he made no less than four extremely thinly-veiled references to whatever they’re doing, Christ--and Bitty yawns and then asks, “So, when will the house be done, Kent?”</p><p>Kent might not particularly remember anything that he did yesterday, but he can recall quite clearly the feeling of reaching his stick to steal a puck that suddenly wasn’t there. </p><p>“I’m not sure,” Kent says. It’s true. He’d read an update about it a few days ago and whatever it’d said must have been fine because he doesn’t have any reminders in his phone about it. </p><p>“Oh,” Bitty says, “Well. I hope things aren't taking too long. You’re certainly paying enough.” </p><p>Kent looks over to see Bitty cuddling closer under Jack’s arm. Jack’s other hand is resting on Kent’s thigh, his arm stretched across the gap between them. </p><p><br/>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸</p><p>“You could just go,” Bitty says. </p><p>Jack doesn’t say anything. </p><p>“That’s your thing now, isn’t it?” Bitty asks. “Things get hard and you get going. You could take Kent with you.”</p><p>Kent stands outside the closed bedroom door, and listens. </p><p>“No,” Jack says, “I’m here, Bitty. I know you’re scared.” </p><p>“...” </p><p><br/>“...” </p><p>“Right where you belong,” Bitty says. “You know that, baby? You belong right next to me.”</p><p>Kent listens to them kiss until he figures they’re not going to do anything more interesting, and goes to bed.</p><p>⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸⬸</p><p>Jack keeps coming to watch Kent lift. Kent pulls out his shortest lifting shorts for the occasion. </p><p>Kent doesn’t particularly care about Bitty’s rule about none of them pairing up to fuck solo because he figures if Jack wants to fuck him bad enough to break the rule, he will. </p><p>He’s not quite as sure when Jack comes to watch him lift. Kent knew Jack at seventeen when he was almost but not entirely out of the phase where an errant wind might get you hard. The behavior now--the flushed cheeks, the awkward arm crossing, and throat clearing--is familiar. </p><p>And somehow Kent would be the bad guy to take Jack up on the offer he’s putting up. </p><p>“Ami says I should talk to you about the first time I propositioned you,” Jack says. </p><p>“Who the fuck is Ami?” Kent says, staring at his socked feet, lining them up with the barbell. </p><p>He squats into position, wrapping his fingers around the barbell. Jack is politely silent while Kent stands the weight up, breathing out and bracing his core against the trembling. </p><p>“My therapist,” Jack says when Kent’s dropped the barbell. “She says I should--we should talk about why I asked you to have sex with Bitty and not with me.”</p><p>“Do you do everything people tell you to do?” Kent asks, like they don’t both know the answer to that one. </p><p>Any therapist worth the money Jack’s probably paying could answer that Ami’s question. Kent doesn’t see why he has to do the work for them. </p><p>“I want to be with you,” Jack says. </p><p>“And Bitty,” Kent says, clamping down on the upward inflection that wants to wiggle its way into the statement. </p><p>“And Bitty,” Jack agrees. “I want--This is where I’m supposed to be.”</p><p>Kent looks at him.</p><p>Jack is a good man. He’s mostly dependable, and he’s great at convincing you you’ve got a soft place to land when and where he fails you. He’s dedicated, he’s loyal--primarily to himself, but it’s nice, being part of his inner circle too. He’s got a gaping, sucking want right in the middle of him, but he’s happy to ignore that too, if it's inconvenient for you. The thought of it, all that need, and the heat of Jack’s eyes on him, who is Kent to say no? </p><p>“Prove it,” Kent says. Jack looks at him, face unchanging and unreadable. </p><p>Kent comes closer and stands over him, knees between Jack’s and says, “Prove you want me.” </p><p>In between the sound of their own breathing, Bitty is audible, talking to the camera, taking the same take over and over again.</p><p>“Kenny,” Jack says now. His nostrils flare and when Kent tilts his head back, it lolls. Kent could guess a lot of things about where Jack is right now, and what’s getting him there. </p><p>Instead, he shoves his own shorts down and pulls his dick out. He’s half chubbed already--endorphins are nice like that-- so he presses a thumb to the middle of Jack’s lips and says, “You brought me here, Jack. Show me you want me then.” </p><p><br/>Jack’s a good, good man. He always has been, from what Kent remembers. </p><p>“Bitty said--,” </p><p>Kent tugs Jack’s hair, just to watch his eyelids flutter. </p><p>“Bitty told me to fuck him, two months before you found out,” he says. “Bitty told me he didn’t care if you walked in. Bitty doesn’t want me because you have me.”</p><p>Jack opens his eyes and doesn't both looking Kent in the face. Kent wonders if his mouth is watering. </p><p>“Bitty will be fine,” Kent says, “Aren’t you two always fine? Don’t you two always land on your feet? Bitty chose you, you think he’s ever gonna give you up?”</p><p>Jack reaches up to grab Kent’s hips and pull him closer. </p><p>“Suck it, Zimms,” Kent whispers, “do what you’re told.”</p><p>Jack leans forward, Kent rests a hand on his shoulder and down the hall, Bitty attempts another take. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The prompts I ended up running with were "the main pairing is sexually incompatiable" and "I don't know how to explain this in quick trope language, but I'm really interested in dysfunctional relationships that don't end in a break-up, but continue to evolve as the dysfunction starts to (badly/maladjustedly) serve emotional functions for the people in the relationship.". </p><p>Y'know, in case you couldn't tell ;)</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you're curious about a former Check Please blog slowly morphing back into a Check Please blog after a four year break, give me a chat over at queerofcups.tumblr.com.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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